SPECIAL REPORT: Silence in the face of local police suicides

Monday

Jul 14, 2014 at 6:00 AMJul 14, 2014 at 7:09 AM

Second of two parts.

Staff Reporter

Anne Ponticelli looked around the Easton police station and saw the blank stares of the officers. The retired Easton police dispatcher had gone to the station shortly after an Easton police officer died while on duty April 5. Although his death certificate says the manner of death was suicide, authorities described it only as a “sudden death,” and said that it was not a criminal matter.

Ponticelli had worked closely with the officer, a 40-year-old married father, for several years. The entire department, she said, was “absolutely stunned.”

“If you go to the police station, they’re walking around with blank looks on their faces because they don’t know how to handle it,” Ponticelli, 69, said a few days after the officer’s death.

“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “Nobody has any answers. Nobody knows why. I said to the officers, ‘Oh my God, what happened?’ And nobody could say anything.”

That silence often extends through the ranks of police and fire departments, as well as the district attorney’s office. Officials are reluctant to discuss the death of an officer, particularly if it is believed to be suicide.

There have been at least seven local emergency responders – police officers, firefighters and a state trooper – who have died at their own hands since 2010.

“We really have no further comment,” Gregg Miliote, spokesman for Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter, said in an email about three weeks after the Easton officer killed himself. Miliote would not provide details of the death, or say if the officer’s service weapon was involved.

But being silent does not address a serious problem in the emergency responder community, said Robert E. Douglas Jr., founder and executive director of the National Police Suicide Foundation in Delaware.

“It’s a very dangerous scenario right now,” Douglas said. “We’re making a serious mistake by not publicly addressing this issue of mental health and suicide in law enforcement. That means that everybody can start working together to try to address this.”

Douglas, a retired Baltimore police officer, said police departments often don’t know how to deal with an officer suicide. While trained in dealing with trauma involving the public, officers are often unprepared – and even experience guilt – when losing one of their own, he said.

“They don’t know how to process that grief,” Douglas said.

Police and fire departments can also be reluctant to discuss an officer or firefighter suicide for liability concerns, said Jack Rinchich, president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police.

“There’s some liability concerns where if an officer had liability on the part of the town or police department,” Rinchich said. “They’re thinking maybe there’s something in this officer’s file, or they realize, ‘Hey, maybe we should have done more.’”

Rinchich said he understands the tendency for emergency responders to not discuss a colleague’s suicide.

“It’s not a popular thing to discuss,” he said. “People would just as soon avoid the conversation, but you have to be realistic.”

That lack of discussion extends to the hiring and screening of public-safety candidates.

In Massachusetts, before they are hired, police and firefighter candidates must pass a medical examination performed by a physician approved by the community where they are seeking to work.

Disqualifying psychiatric conditions for a police candidate include mood, personality, thought, behavior and anxiety disorders. Doctors will also review police candidates for any other psychiatric condition that results in the candidate not being able to perform their job.

Unlike police, there are no conditions that automatically disqualify a firefighter candidate. But before they are hired, a physician will review a firefighter candidate’s psychiatric, behavioral and substance abuse history to determine if it would affect job performance.

Once hired, however, officers and firefighters do not have to undergo additional medical or psychological screenings, said Barry Geraghty, deputy program director for the Plymouth County Critical Incident Stress Management Team, which assists emergency responders in crisis.

“There’s nothing that mandates that they would be required to do that,” said Geraghty, a retired Abington police officer.

While regular medical screenings may seem like a natural solution to help emergency responders get treatment, police officers and firefighters would likely frown upon such a policy out of fear of losing their job, he said.

“Most officers would look at a mental health screening as a fit-for-duty evaluation,” Geraghty said. “As such, that really puts a road block to getting any kind of help. The minute they feel that their job is on the line, they’re not going to speak to anybody.”

Douglas estimates that less than 3 percent of 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States have any kind of suicide prevention training for officers.

“This has never been mandated training by a police standard board. Huge mistake,” Douglas said.

Douglas, who supports random psychological screenings for officers, said departments should train supervisors to evaluate their officers at least twice a year to pick up on suicide warning signs.

“If the officers were trained in the signs and the symptoms, they would be able to make intervention,” Douglas said. “If they knew the 10 most likely reasons why officers would commit suicide, such as separation or divorce, serious financial problems, death of a family member within the past year, demotion or an unwanted transfer ... if they knew these things, then the sergeant could call for that officer to get help.”

In Quincy, counseling was made available to police officers after Quincy police Detective Edward Ryan, 41, a second-generation police officer, shot himself in the head in a Quincy cemetery in 2012.

The Quincy Police Department was the only area department that openly acknowledged and discussed suicide among its ranks for this report.

“The Boston Police Stress Unit came in and assisted us,” said Quincy Police Capt. John Dougan. “We made stress assistance available to all the officers.”

Ryan’s death “was completely unexpected,” said Dougan. It affected the entire department for months afterward, he said.

“It made everybody in the department upset and sad,” Dougan said. “He was an outgoing, gregarious type of person. Nobody ever expected that to happen.”

The Quincy Police Department has two stress officers available to any officer who needs peer counseling. The stress officers were in place before Ryan’s death, he said.

The Easton police officer was on duty and midway through his Saturday patrol shift when he shot himself in the head at his home. Neighbors witnessed a massive police response to the officer’s home in the minutes after his suicide.

Weeks later, Easton selectmen commended Easton police Lt. Gary Sullivan – who was in charge of the department when the officer committed suicide – for the leadership he displayed during a time “of great personal loss.”

“Dealing with the initial event and its aftermath was no simple task, and it required much more than merely doing your job,” selectmen said in a letter to Sullivan. “Caring for (the officer’s) family and the well-being of your fellow officers while never losing sight of the fact that the safety of an entire town rested with you required a selflessness that few possess.”

Easton Police Chief Allen Krajcik would not discuss the officer’s suicide or details surrounding his death, saying only that the dead officer is greatly missed by the entire department.

“He was an outstanding officer and a great person, and it’s been difficult for all of us,” Krajcik said.

Follow Maria Papadopoulos on Twitter @MariaP_ENT.

Crisis hotlines

The Massachusetts Peer Support Network: 617-967-4141

Cop 2 Cop Hotline: 866-C0P-2COP

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-TALK

Safe Call Now, affiliated with Serve & Protect: 206-459-3020

National Police Suicide Foundation: 866-276-4615

Veterans Crisis Line: 800-273-8255 and press 1

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